Last week I welcomed the latest statistics from the independent Office for National Statistics (ONS) which revealed that Crawley’s youth unemployment rate is now half of what it was under the previous Labour Government.
I have been disappointed by the Crawley Labour Party’s concerted efforts to talk down local young people. Without any substance or truth, senior local Labour councillors have quoted fictitious youth unemployment rates; with notional figures such as 133 and 200 per cent increases.
I can understand why Labour do not want to hear the truth – the Office for National Statistics’ own independent data shows that towards the end of the last Labour administration Crawley youth unemployment was at an unacceptable high of 8.6 percent; today that figure stands at 4.2 percent.
The more than halving of youth unemployment since Labour was in power shows both that this Government’s policy of job creation is working but also that there is still yet further to go towards tackling unemployment across all local age groups.
Whilst Labour’s tax and spend policies amassed an historically high national debt, this Government has restored Great Britain’s economic policies to a sound footing – paying off the national debts by a third so far; supporting business to grow and to invest; and creating over 1.25 million new jobs. For every one job lost in the public sector last year, six new jobs have been created across the private sector.
Thanks to this Government’s funding drive to support young people, we now have 89 per cent more apprenticeships across Crawley and, with a new University Centre at Central Sussex College, further education enrolments up from the disgracefully low 17 per cent rate that we saw under the previous Government.
Labour should stop blocking efforts to support Crawley’s youth and start helping to clear up the economic mess which they left us.
Henry Smith MP